


The Music Remains the Same

by missbecky



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Angst, Gen, missing moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/pseuds/missbecky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's down on his knees and he knows he shouldn't say anything, but it's his music, it's all he has left of his mom, and he just can't help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music Remains the Same

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to nightwalker for the beta.

He's down on his knees and he knows he shouldn't say anything, but it's his music, his _music_ , it's all he has left of his mom, and he just can't help it.

"Hooked on a Feeling! Blue Swede! 1973! That song belong to _me!_ "

The big ugly guard shocks him again, and he's down, helpless on the floor, jerking and shuddering all over. The pain is like fire all through his body, and all too soon he's screaming with it.

He doesn't know how long it lasts, how long the guard holds the torturestick on him, how long he lies there twitching and screaming. Time is suspended, has no meaning –

_\-- has no meaning in space where no one keeps a 24-hour day, a 365-day year. He doesn't know how long it's been, doesn't even really know how old he is –_

The worst of the pain finally stops, though his body still keeps reacting to the shocks. The guard in the hall speaks, lazy and indifferent, and for a few awful moments Peter can't understand him, and he knows it's the translator implant, it's been fried by the shocks and needs a few seconds to reboot and –

_\-- and they're laughing as they hold him down with heavy hands, and he screams and writhes against them, and one of them cuts him behind his ear, and blood runs hot down his neck and into his hair, and the one with the blue face and the thing on the top of his head comes forward, and he's screaming and crying (even though the song tells him that_ big boys don't cry) _and the blue one puts something inside his neck and it_ hurts _and then all of a sudden he can understand what they're saying –_

\-- and then it kicks in, his ears hearing the alien language but his brain hearing English, as the guard says, "All right. As entertaining as this is, I have a schedule to keep. Gotta get this lot processed."

The blue guy hauls Peter to his feet. He stands there uncertainly, swaying like he's just drunk his way through Yondu's entire secret stash of liquor. He's still twitching and shaking all over, his muscles spasming out of his control. And it's probably going to earn him another round of shocks, but he can't help glaring at the big blue bastard who did this, the fucker who's still wearing his headphones, the cheerful sounds of "Hooked on a Feeling" still audible over the ringing echoes of his own screams.

 _You're dead,_ he vows. No one takes his music. It's his. It's all he has left. No one so much as touches it –

_\-- he's screaming in fury, because his mom gave that to him, and they can't take it from him, they_ can't, _and it's really just dumb luck, the Ravager so drunk he pretty much impales himself on the knife in Peter's hand, but it's still his first kill, and he thinks that Yondu will kill him for this, and the thought is actually something of a relief, and he sits beside the pool of blood and he shuts his eyes and the music fills his ears and that's how they find him and –-_

\-- and he's getting out of here. He doesn't know how just yet – though he's got a feeling that Rocket already knows the way. So be it, then. He'll stick with the talking raccoon for a while, just long enough to get out of here.

So he gives in. He lets the blue bastard shove him back out into the corridor, reeling and stumbling and almost falling down again. Not one of his companions says anything. They just stand there the way they did when he was being tortured, not speaking up in his defense but not laughing, either, so he supposes they get points for that much, at least.

Whatever. It doesn't matter.

He lets the guards push him into the cleansing room and spray him with that orange shit and he shuts his eyes and swears that he's going to escape. And when he's dressing in his prison uniform and they shove Rocket inside, he looks thoughtfully at the creature. Wondering what Rocket has planned, and what he has to do to be included. Because he's getting the hell out of here.

But he's not leaving without his music.

**Author's Note:**

> That scene where the guard tortures Peter for trying to get the Walkman back really disturbs me, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since I first saw the movie, over a week ago. From that, this story.


End file.
